Sarcophagus lid. Etruria, 3rd century BC.

Sarcophagus lid. Etruria, 3rd century BC. In terracotta. The head is not original. Measurements: 43 x 222 x 50 cm. The Etruscan sarcophagus owes its appearance in the sepulchral chambers of the 7th century BC to an Oriental custom. The version with human figures carved on the lid, like the one shown here, is typically Etruscan. In inland southern Etruria, in the 3rd century, alongside the production of sarcophagi in lithic material, a characteristic production of terracotta sarcophagi took root, mainly in Tuscania. This kline-shaped lid depicts a young man lying on his side in the usual banqueting pose, with his head (not the original) modelled in a freestanding manner and with his feet protruding, worked in relief. The "portraits" on sarcophagi usually followed fixed typologies, which sought to satisfy the most recurrent casuistry. The effigies usually maintained rather impersonal features that conformed to Late Classical cult models. This type of funerary urn is adapted to the Etruscan traditions associated with their cult of the dead: the urn is in the form of a vase and a lid, on which there is a sculpture of the deceased in a banqueting position, lying on a triclinium, alive, smiling, with his left elbow resting on wine skins, his legs tucked in.